


Drowning the Aftermath

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-16
Updated: 2006-03-16
Packaged: 2019-01-20 00:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12421017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Alicia spends a night in the rain.





	Drowning the Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

Despite getting a grand total of six colds, being grounded seven times for doing it, and receiving countless amounts of scoldings, spankings, and odd looks, she still stood out in the rain every time it stormed. Any time of the day, or night, no matter what she was doing whether it be homework or eating or talking with Angelina, she still dropped everything and ran outside. Her favorite practices were the ones in rain, and even if they lost a game in the rain, it was still better than all the others merely because it rained. 

She couldn’t explain it. Something in her, even as a little girl, had taken a liking to the little droplets of water falling out of the sky, and soaking through her clothes, to her very skin. When her sisters and brother would run inside at the first hint of rain, Alicia would stay in the middle of the lawn, refusing to come back in until every last drop had fallen from the gray clouds. Then her mother would scold her for tracking in mud and dripping all other the place, and after a spanking, would send her upstairs to change into something clean and dry. That always happened, even if she was a seventeen year old woman now. 

Her older sister in particular always found it hilarious. 

But Alicia didn’t care. She’d gotten her ten minutes, maybe an hour if she was lucky, in the rain, feeling the wind and water carry away all of her stress in one clean sweep. It understood her, the rain. It knew when to caress and when to strike hard. It knew exactly what she needed every time, from the softest drizzle to the violent thunderstorms. When it stormed for three days after her first heartbreak, she knew that the rain was healing her. It felt with her, wept with her, shared her pain, and swept it all away, leaving her refreshed and strong enough to take on the sunny day. 

It wasn’t any different now. A lot had changed in three years, but the rain still knew her just as well as it had the first time. It knew that she was in pain, so it opened its dark underbelly and poured out its tears onto her and Hogwarts. It knew what she needed, even if she hadn’t known it herself. She’d almost been reluctant to go outside for this storm, barely even able to drag herself to class every day, but it had persisted, beating harder against her dorm window until she could barely hear herself think. It demanded that she deal with this, share her pain with it, and it wasn’t going to stop until she did just that. 

She made an excuse to Angelina, interrupting her mid sentence rant, and fled their dorm before the black girl could protest. It was a bad excuse, she knew, but the rain wasn’t giving up, and she had no doubt that it wouldn’t hesitate in flooding Hogwarts with its wrath if she didn’t join it. 

A freezing gust greeted her when she finally stepped outside, whirling around her, sending a sudden chill to her bones. Oh, <i>Merlin</i> was that cold. She shivered, pulling her arms closer around her, and muttering an apology under her breath. She came to a stop by the lake, shivering violently now. No doubt that she would wake up tomorrow with a sore throat and stuffed nose but she had to do this. She had to. 

Water from the lake lapped around her ankles, soaking her shoes and socks instantly, leaving the bottom of her pants drenched as well. The water was rising, that was for sure. She couldn’t remember a time when it had rained so hard that the water had risen above its high banks. 

Then again, she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so empty either. 

For several minutes, she stood there, watching the rolling waves of lake water crash against each other time and time again. The wind was vicious, whipping her now sopping hair against her cold, wet skin. She didn’t feel it though. She barely even felt the cold. It wasn’t a good sign, health wise, to go numb from the cold, but she needed to go numb before she could start to fill herself in. 

Suddenly, she gasped and unable to stand it any longer, let down her guard and let her tears fall. Slow at first, and then her entire body shook with the force of her sobs. When before she’d been empty, and numb, now she felt everything. Every little smile, and every annoyance, every joy, every tear, every nerve in her body each had its own emotion and was intent on being felt before anything else. It was torture, and she was sure that her sanity had left her ages ago. 

After all, what sort of sane person stood by a flooding lake, sobbing in a rainstorm?

It wasn’t until she had literally no more tears left to cry that she stopped. The storm, who had died down a little while she cried, picked up where she left off, storming and bringing more water to the already soaked earth. Her shoulder still shook with silent sobs. There were nerves that hadn’t been heard yet. They had to be heard. 

She blamed him for the storm, and her pain. If he hadn’t left like that, without even a thought to her and their relationship, just his own sorry arse and his twin’s and had written to her just once since he’d left, then it wouldn’t be flooding and she wouldn’t have spent the past two weeks walking around like a zombie, unable to feel anything or bring herself to try. 

It had to have been after midnight when she snapped out of her little world and noticed that it was barely raining anymore. It had blown itself out, barely able to gather the strength to drop a couple drops of water down on her, and the wind was no longer blowing, too tired from its tantrum earlier. A ghost of moon and starlight poked through the disappearing clouds. 

Alicia wasn’t sure how to feel anymore. She was spent, drained off all energy and ability to recognize any new feeling. Now the rain was leaving her, just as every one else had. Her father, her dog, George…, they all left her. It was impossible for her to hold onto something. Not even her beloved rain would stay for more than a few hours. It had done what it could for her and now it had to go tend to another of its charges. 

She still felt empty and cold. 

It hadn’t helped at all. It wasn’t able to, she realized with a start. There was only one force who could that for her and it had flown out of her life without a care. 

Stiff muscles protested when she tried to move them. Now that her need to be cleansed and cry herself dry had been satisfied, it was time that she return to the castle, and her warm bed and dry nightie. Ignoring the protests, she forced her muscles to gather strength enough to carry her back to the castle, up to Gryffindor tower and her room, strip her wet things for dry ones, and tuck herself into bed. 

“Alicia?” 

She froze with her hand on the lamp, ready to put it out when someone else hadn't. She’d been quieter than the grave coming into the room and when she moved about, there was no way that Angelina could’ve woken. The other girl was a heavy sleeper, everyone knew that. Angelina had to have been waiting up for her. That was the only explanation. 

When she didn’t answer, Angelina continued, “Did it help you at all?” 

“No,” Alicia whispered, cringing at the harsh sound of her voice. 

“Yeah, it didn’t help me either,” Angelina admitted. For the first time, Alicia noticed that there were two puddles on the dorm room floor, one next to her bed, the other next to Angelina’s. 

Silently, Alicia summoned the energy enough to cross from her bed to Angelina’s and the two girls held each other, mourning their loves and dreams lost, sharing their anger and grief, sharing plans for revenge with secret delight, cursing and daming the name of Weasley, and drawing what strength they could off each other until the sun peeked through the curtains, and utterly spent, they feel asleep, silently vowing to each other get over those Weasley twins no matter what. 

A month later when an owl appeared at the breakfast table, bearing two letters addressed to them in familiar scribbling, Alicia took great pleasure in setting fire to them both.


End file.
